ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that problems with traditional regulation do leave space for an important role for private law, but one that is based not on its being a carrier of market goals or mechanisms, but on it’s providing a means of privately initiated challenges to official definitions of the public interest. It suggests that in situations such as these the private law action contains the potential to prise open issues about the desirability of the development and its impact on a locality, thereby increasing the accountability of and participation in the overall decision making process. The chapter shows that the private law has the potential to express conceptions of the public interest. The chapter explores the various judicial approaches to licences and planning permissions in private law actions, looking especially at the role of the locality doctrine in the tort of private nuisance.
